Our friends over at Beekman 1802 (www.beekman1802.com) are hosting the World’s Largest, Oldest Garden Party, which features seasonal tips, recipes, and advice for green thumb enthusiasts. Each month they hold a contest for website guests who have great tips in various gardening categories, and celebrity judges choose the winners. This month’s contest focuses on weed control, and guess what? They’ve asked me to be the judge!

So go ahead and take a peek at their website, then put on your thinking caps. Over the years, you’ve sent me lots of terrific ideas for knocking out weeds in your own yards and gardens, so I invite you to share them with the Garden Party. Who knows? Maybe you’ll walk away with a nifty prize package (complete with an autographed copy of my Terrific Garden Tonics book).

One of the best ways to control weeds in your flower garden for the entire growing season is to mulch the bed. Mulch will smother most weeds, and the few that do pop up can be easily pulled from the loose soil. For extra benefit, spread a 1-inch layer of compost first (this will help improve your soil). Top that with another 1 to 2 inches of shredded bark, pine needles or chopped leaves. And then—to really kick things into action—overspray your mulch with this fantastic formula:

Mix 1 can of regular cola (not diet), ½ cup of ammonia, ½ cup of antiseptic mouthwash, and ½ cup of baby shampoo in a 20 gallon hose-end sprayer. Then give your mulch a nice long, cool drink. Add more mulch as needed through the season to keep it at the same depth. Treat it with this spray each time you re-mulch, then get ready to have the most bloom-filled flower beds on your block!

They may look cute, but there’s nothing cute about the damage furry little critters can do to your garden. So it’s a good thing that practically all four-legged pests – including gophers, groundhogs, skunks, squirrels, and roaming pets – will flee from the scent of ammonia. Just soak rags in the stuff, put them in old panty hose toes, and hang them in the areas you want to protect. If there’s no hanging space, pour the ammonia into wide-necked bottles (like the kind juice comes in), and bury them up to the rims here and there throughout your garden.

Here’s a great idea that’ll really help you baby your potted plants and fragile herbs: After you’ve emptied a baby powder container, wash it out, and turn it into a mini sprinkling can. It’s perfect for giving delicate flowers a gentle shower, and it’s just the ticket for tiny tots who want to help you with your watering chores. And don’t fret if your container isn’t quite empty and you’re rarin’ to put it to use: Just sprinkle the rest of the baby powder around your flower beds and borders. It’ll keep curious squirrels and other rodents on the outside looking in.

Long summer days are perfect for outdoor activities, and sometimes the best fun is a big game of backyard bowling! It’s one of the best ways I know of to have fun outside and recycle all those empty, 2-liter plastic bottles into good, clean fun. Just pour a few inches of soil, sand, cat litter, or pebbles into ten clean, dry bottles, put the lids back on, and—voila!—you’ve got a set of bowling pins. Arrange ‘em on the lawn, then round up the kids, grandkids, and neighbors, and take turns trying to knock down the pins with the ball of your choice.

Looking for a way to stop pesky bugs from destroying your hard work this growing season? Plastic bottles (emptied of their contents, of course) make terrific traps for all kinds of pests. Just coat the bottles with corn syrup or a commercial stick-um like Tanglefoot®. Then either hang them from trees or stick them upside down on stakes that you’ve pounded into the ground among your precious plants. You can tempt garden troublemakers to your traps by adding color to the bottles, too—most bugs zero in on yellow, but here are a few exceptions to the rule:

• Apple maggots adore red.
• Tarnished plant bugs, flea beetles, and rose chafers go for white.
• Thrips make a beeline to blue.
  

My Grandma Putt used to say that except for the fact that it’s round, a store-bought tomato bears about as much resemblance to the genuine article as a goldfish does to an elephant. Homegrown tomatoes are loaded with flavor, so if you haven’t already planted some, what are you waitin’ for? The best way to get your tomato crop off and running is to buy started plants—if you walk into any garden center today, you’ll see acres of them. Make sure your tomatoes stay fat, happy, and hydrated all summer long by keeping the roots moist. Tuck some wadded-up newspaper in the bottom of each planting hole. As water leaches through the soil, the paper will absorb and hold it—right where the roots can tap into the supply through the long, hot days ahead.

Hooray—it’s Memorial Day weekend! The glorious weather is beckoning, so take full advantage of it. Now’s the perfect time to gather up your seed packets and get going—er—growing in your garden. If you have a hard time handling teeny tiny seeds, then try this nifty solution: Rinse out an empty spice jar and put it to good use as a handy helper. With those perforated tops, spice jars make perfect dispensers for lettuce seeds, carrot seeds, and other itty-bitty seeds that can drive you nuts when you try to sow them by hand. Spice jars are also just the right size for storing leftover seeds. Simply combine 1 part seed to 1 part powdered milk, put the mix in the jar, screw the lid on tight, and store it in the refrigerator (not the freezer) until the next planting time rolls around.